9. Chace
The weight of a tomb pressed into my gut. The pressure had existed since I’d witnessed the creation of the creature on the bridge…and relived a memory I’d, apparently, forgotten long ago.
One moment, I was internally chuckling at Raven’s stance and the way her movements reminded me of a flustered bird…
a flustered bird with really nice curves…
and the next, I was a small kid discovering a wicked, winged beast in my father’s dark laboratory.
I still considered him my father back then, as our relationship had yet to crumble into radioactive dust.
I squeezed my hands together and slowly shuffled forward. A big, dark being…something I’d never seen before…floundered within the cage set in front of me. I stared at neither a bird nor a bat. Maybe some sort of out-of-water, flying stingray?
Clearly agitated, the thing’s fleshy body slammed and thrashed against the iron bars, depositing smears of blood on the surroundings of its enclosure. The only sounds it made―the flapping of its plump wings and the hits of its body against the metal box.
Bam. Thump. Bang.
I flinched but held myself against the desire to tremble. Gnawing on the inside of my lip, I glanced over my shoulder, confirming the door to Father’s lab remained closed, and the stern reaper was nowhere in sight. If he discovered me amongst his “projects”…
Beep. Zeehe. Beep.
On a nearby computer screen, a video played on repeat―a scene of the creature’s creation.
“Not always a monster,” I muttered.
A wet cough snapped my head past the computer and winged creature. Another caged surprise awaited deeper in the room.
Wringing my hands, and with my heart crashing against my ribs, I shifted sideways to better see past the cage set before me. Several yards back, something moved within one of the prison’s confines.
Crash!
I jolted, and a small yelp leapt from my lips. The flapping beast in the cage directly in front of me slammed into the front bars again, as if trying to force its way through the tight spaces to reach me.
A face on the underside of the thing blinked at me. I had the undeniable sense that the creature pleaded for release. Maybe it did, for I had seen…
I sucked in a deep breath.
The being…whatever it was…wasn’t right.
The winged creatures outside of the train had sparked a faint familiarity. An inkling of the memory. But watching one coming into being…
I swallowed the too-large lump in my throat.
Why hadn’t I listened to Raven when she said the creatures had faces on their underbellies?
Damn Ubel Badden and his experiments.
The energy buzzing in the air around the citadel made my nerves tighten and my hair stand on end.
More slivers of memories regarding a winged monster in a cage, what lay beyond the creature’s cage, hung just out of reach.
Minute glimpses flickered every now and then, revealing more untapped information existed in my mind. If only I could access all of it.
I hadn’t expected to start uncovering Ubel’s secrets so early in the task.
What about my past, or about Ubel’s words, can I even trust to be true?
Without a doubt, the beast in Ubel’s laboratory came from the Citadel of Veritas. Reaper Badden knew those things came from here, and he’d said nothing to me, his only son, before seeing me off on this task.
Wish I could say I am surprised.
For Ubel, or one of his lackeys, to have captured the creature and gotten it to the lab, they would have had to have understood the creation process.
Heck, the rotten reaper had a record of it set on replay over a decade ago.
No scenario existed where he wasn’t aware of how easily I could have become one of those flying stingray-looking things.
I curled my hands into white-knuckled fists.
And now this guy…
Human, fae, elf, whatever… I didn’t trust him.
I stared at the back of Aoes’s head.
This guy could have been, or possibly still is, Ubel’s lackey on the inside.
The way he just happened to appear with the solution to our problem…
Everything about the situation rang as far too convenient. If Aoes could cross the confining barrier, why did he continue to hang around the citadel of death? Why hadn’t he left the place in the distant past?
I studied Aldine and Raven. Aoes guided them down the sharply angled path cutting into the craggy landscape, and the way my team members followed the stranger with apparent easy faith set my teeth on edge.
My eyes were wide open, but were Raven’s?
Aldine’s? I might not see Aoes fully for what he was, yet, but soon enough, I’d figure out the guy’s deal.
Bet it’s as shady as a cemetery at dusk.
I scrutinized Aoes’s every move as we descended the two-foot-thin trail. The earthen wall pressed in on our right, and the ground dropped off on our left. Aldine’s wide shoulders somewhat blocked Aoes from sight, but I saw, and I watched.
I’m only following because (one) the task requires I get inside the citadel, and (two) I need to keep an eye on Aldine and Raven.
We traveled single file, Aoes, Aldine, Raven, and then me, trekking into what appeared to have once been a moat surrounding the city.
Puddles of stagnant water and mud patches riddled the now relatively dry, carved channel.
The path led us beneath the bridge and—hopefully—below the magical barrier of energy.
After all, I’d seen Aoes on the other side of the barrier, and now the guy stood beside us. Still…
I fancied myself more of a raven than a crow, making my own decisions, charting my own course, and depending upon none other than myself, versus following the flock like that of the crow. And right now, I found my flock far too trusting.
I rubbed my fingers deep into my temples. “Where exactly are you taking us?”
In front of me, Raven’s shoulders stiffened even as she kept her focus forward.
I had expected more from her, if for no other reason than because of her given name.
And, quite possibly, because of the fire I might have perceived in and around her mother.
Only I had yet to witness any hint of fire shimmer around Raven herself.
But I had seen something smudged around her earlier this morning. Something strong and vibrant.
I dropped my gaze over her, snagging on the sway of her hips. A low hum rumbled deep within me as I bit down on my lower lip and dragged it between my teeth.
She was…
I jerked. Shook my head.
What in hell’s fire am I doing? Reaping gods, I needed to stay focused.
I blinked and forced my unexpected distraction to ash. Then glanced from the path ahead to the back of Aoes’s skull. “Where? Aoes. Where are you taking us?”
He spun around, and reacting to my question, pressed a finger to his lips. The gesture jerked my attention to his analytical gaze. The guide’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Raven, the press of his brow and lift of his lips suggesting he’d noticed my wandering perusal.
Whatever.
“We don’t want Fen to hear us.” Aoes tilted his head to the bridge above, then continued speaking at such a low volume I strained to hear the words. “Don’t need that kind of attention.”
I narrowed my stare. Because if Fen knew you had a way out of the citadel, he wouldn’t be guarding the gate anymore. He’d be running for the train station.
Aoes returned forward and descended the last few feet of the downward path. He led us into the shadow of the bridge and across the flatter territory at the base, stepping around or leaping over shallow pools of water cutting through the terrain.
No longer forced to travel in a straight line, Raven strode forward, slipped in beside Aoes, and strummed up a conversation.
They walked far enough ahead that I couldn’t hear their words with true clarity, and I didn’t really care. I heard enough to know they talked about the dried moat—idle talk. Why couldn’t Raven lay into Aoes and demand his true motives?
“Tell me about the magical barrier,” she said after too-long minutes. “Why doesn’t it extend all the way to the ground, and how did you possibly discover this fact?”
My ears pricked at the useful topic about which more information would be greatly valued.
Aoes’s smile wavered. “Well, uh…” With a rise of his chest, and the lift of his arms and shoulders, he continued, “The barrier once met the floor of the moat, but the floor isn’t where it once was. In other words, we dug a trench. It’s not a ton of space, but it’s enough to squeeze through.”
“We?” Raven pressed.
Who was brave enough to test the limits of the transformational magic to build a trench?
“The rest of we hasn’t been around in a very long time.” Aoes swung his attention to me and scrutinized me from head to toe, as if sizing me up.
I braced myself for some unwanted comment, but it didn’t come.
Instead, he wrinkled his nose and returned his attention forward. “Anyway, if you hunch low or drop to your knees, you should all be able to maneuver beneath the magic just fine. The location of where to do so is marked with a line of rocks.”
A line of rocks the only marker to safeguard us against the monster-making power? Yeah…so not loving this situation.
“There it is.” He pointed to a shallow trench a few yards ahead.
Sure enough, a row of rocks lined both sides of the carved path, leaving no doubt as to where we should attempt to pass beneath the barrier magic―a sorcery that shimmered in an expansive wall before us.
For added visibility, a log or branch rose like a pole on the other side, marking the location and making it easy to spot from a distance.
“The ditch used to be bigger, but over the years, with little to no use…” Aoes shrugged. “We need to get low to crawl under the ward.” He zeroed in on Aldine. “Can you handle this?”
Our elder scoffed. “Don’t let my looks fool you. I’m quite capable of many things.”